Are we dining at the top table or not?

[SWP's back]

We have addressed all our needs and done it for a net spend of nil making a huge dent in our losses and setting ourselves up to really be able to spend big when we need to. We are opening the best training ground in the world and expanding the stadium.

Yet clearly many blues would rather we undermined everything we have built by apunking money on players we don't need just so we look like we are doing something.

Best window we have had since 2010 and it sets up beautifully. Sad to see negredo go but if his family was unhappy we really needed to let him go! We sold a near 30 year old who hasn't scored in 8 months and who is not going to be fit till Nov for a 50% profit it is an incredible deal.

He wasn't going to be in champions league squad and not match fit till November so really the risk is for 9 premier league games mainly against weaker teams and it is only a risk if all three strikers we have are injured at the same time in this period and even then we have Yaya, silva and at a push guidetti or kelechi

Great shout.

 

[br62]

We have addressed all our needs and done it for a net spend of nil making a huge dent in our losses and setting ourselves up to really be able to spend big when we need to. We are opening the best training ground in the world and expanding the stadium.

Yet clearly many blues would rather we undermined everything we have built by apunking money on players we don't need just so we look like we are doing something.

Best window we have had since 2010 and it sets up beautifully. Sad to see negredo go but if his family was unhappy we really needed to let him go! We sold a near 30 year old who hasn't scored in 8 months and who is not going to be fit till Nov for a 50% profit it is an incredible deal.

He wasn't going to be in champions league squad and not match fit till November so really the risk is for 9 premier league games mainly against weaker teams and it is only a risk if all three strikers we have are injured at the same time in this period and even then we have Yaya, silva and at a push guidetti or kelechi

Excellent post.

 

[Questy]

I am a big admirer of Txiki and Ferran – shit, I even like Marwood – but I do not consider them infallible and only time will tell whether they have erred in this instance.

What I do know is that we entered last weekend with what I considered to be the league’s best set of strikers and a few short days later we may not even have the second best set of strikers. That is not my idea of squad improvement; it is my idea of taking a risk, albeit that it may only be a short-term risk.
The risk is that we have injury problems with our strikers before we get to January, which is not an inconsequential risk given the track records of both Aguero and Jovetic. City also face the risk that they will not be able to bag a suitable replacement in January.

On the other hand, we know that Negredo was going to have limited availability prior to the opening of the next transfer window. In the meantime, City may be able to draft Iheanacho, who looks to be a precocious talent, into the squad. However, nothing is guaranteed in that regard.

Given how much we are getting for Negredo, it could ultimately look like a smart piece of business but it seemed to be an open secret that he was unsettled in England and therefore the club should have planned for this eventuality. Whether Falcao was ever part of such planning seems unclear but, as a fan, the idea of strengthening the squad by upgrading to him from The Beast was floated before us only to be well and truly ripped away by him pitching up at the Rags and that leaves a sour taste for now. That said, if the numbers being quoted are right, I can see why City would have baulked at the deal but it still doesn’t sweeten matters. What does matter is that we do not look back and rue this when prize-giving time comes around again.

Floated before us by who though! Certainly was;nt the club and lets be real, if City wanted him he'd be a City player right now, The Rags where 3rd choice and they where so desperate to try and appease their fans that they'd literally let themselves be raped by Falcaos Agent and Monaco, oh how times have changed, we in the meantime done our required business when others where sleeping,

 

[SWP's back]

I'm with you alex but you know who will be along in a minute to tell us to trust txiki

Someone with sense?

The usual suspects who thinks he walks on water and never makes mistakes,of course he has and will,i believe this is one,time will tell,until then i don't need to be insulted by you

Insulted? Oh man up for Christ's sake.

The worst insult I've ever called you is a flapper, and you are one.

 

[BillyShears]

we couldn't replace Nastasic unless we brought in a mercenary happy to sit out CL or an English player.

we couldn't replace Negredo unless we brought in a mercenary happy to sit out CL or an English player.

Neither of which are suitable options this summer.

All we have to do this season is make Top 3. Make Top 3 and we get the BT CL money, and deprive one of the old guard from having it, they know this and are desperate to climb in the trap door at anyone's expense. I reckon we will have comfortably at least £100m to spend next summer, if not more, and will 2 or 3 marquee players.

We will also have room, when our restrictions are lifted, to buy 1 foreign player without needing to replace, meaning that we can go all out for a star with no concerns. I reckon we will buy a HG star like Barkley, and then we can sit back and watch who's suffering. Whoever missed out on 4th will have a hard time keeping stars, as Real and Barca will swoop for a Ramsey, Sterling etc. and the likes of Sanchez wouldn't want to hang around, thus opening the market for us, either to then buy them up or pick off the players Real and Barca want to offload, which they would have to do.

Perform on the pitch this season and we set ourselves up and firmly shut the trapdoor on the old guard trying to throw us out, because we will then have too much money, and no restrictions, to hinder us, and we will become part of the elite and start being able to sign marquee players as and when we want, and the squad has already been set up to allow this. We are also going to get to the stage where we've got through the academy age groups who have suffered because of the pace of change, and we can already see that even a few of those are being sold on or loaned out to good clubs for a nice fee, but in the next couple of years we'll start to see a few genuine talents emerging and within 5 imo genuinely 2 or 3 make a very game attempt at breaking in as a first team regular.

I think we're setting up very sensibly, we just have to get the players we have to avoid another Stoke at home, the only way we can fuck this up is on the pitch, top 3 and we're sorted.

Excellent analysis JMW. Our club has NEVER in it's history been in more capable hands from top to bottom than it currently is. Nobody is perfect and I'm sure that Txiki, Ferran, Khaldoon, Pellegrini, Marwood, Kloss, the entire board will make the occasional bad decision. They're human. But overall and in terms of our long term health, I wouldn't swap the people running our club for anyone else's decision makers.

I'd like to hear from anyone who would prefer someone else's board of directors and I'd like to hear why they think those people would do a better job or make better decisions.

 

[JoeMercer'sWay]

I'm with you alex but you know who will be along in a minute to tell us to trust txiki

Someone with sense?

The usual suspects who thinks he walks on water and never makes mistakes,of course he has and will,i believe this is one,time will tell,until then i don't need to be insulted by you

what's he done wrong? Taking all factors into consideration... *genuine question*

 

[BillyShears]

Someone with sense?

The usual suspects who thinks he walks on water and never makes mistakes,of course he has and will,i believe this is one,time will tell,until then i don't need to be insulted by you

what's he done wrong? Taking all factors into consideration... *genuine question*

You beat me to it. Would love to know what these bad decisions are that our board have made since they were appointed. Genuinely as well because there seems to be an awful lot of people who seem to be wandering around with a sense that Soriano and our director of football are somehow chancers who don't know what they're doing. In fact I think i read that exact phrase used to describe them just this morning.

Anyway yes, Karen, would love to hear what these bad decisions are you think that the powers that be have made.

 

[BobKowalski]

I do agree and also think there was a point in the last 48 hours where Falcao coming here was a real possibility and this kick started us into allowing Negredo to talk to Valencia. Something changed with the Falcao deal and I think we looked at Negredo's injury situation and thought it was one we could handle until the next window at least and the deal was too good to walk away from.

I don't see the two connected to be honest

As i said in the transfer forum i still don't believe we were ever in for Falcao, he may have been offered to us with all the noise was coming from Mendes but with them weekly prices you can see why City told him to do one.

The Negredo deal was always going to happen with him wanting the move and the figures being right for both club and player, if it's the right move only time will tell.

Spot on, City where never on the lookout for Falcao, he was put up to us by his Agent and we would have been foolish to not even listen to terms requested, as it is there is no way on this earth that we would do the deal that Utd have with him and I suspect same could come out regarding Arsenal.

I doubt any of us actually know how serious or not we were with the Falcao deal. We do know that to make things happen with the Falcao deal we had to offload a striker and the Negrado deal started to hot up at the same time. We also know that Pellers wants/needs 4 strikers because he has said so. Now he has 3. We may buy in January, we may be pinning our hopes on a 17 y/o but we have taken justifiable satisfaction at how we plan our squad in terms of shape and balance so this deal does look at odds with that ethos. As for maximising transfer value with a last minute deal well that is poor planning given an earlier sale at a million or two less but securing adequate cover makes more sense from a footballing perspective. Leave the last minute crap to Daniel Levy.

I agree with Blue2112 that the Negrado deal went too far for it to be walked back and it made more sense for it to go through then kill it but it still leave Pellers short of his desired striker quota.

 

[BillyShears]

I don't see the two connected to be honest

As i said in the transfer forum i still don't believe we were ever in for Falcao, he may have been offered to us with all the noise was coming from Mendes but with them weekly prices you can see why City told him to do one.

The Negredo deal was always going to happen with him wanting the move and the figures being right for both club and player, if it's the right move only time will tell.

Spot on, City where never on the lookout for Falcao, he was put up to us by his Agent and we would have been foolish to not even listen to terms requested, as it is there is no way on this earth that we would do the deal that Utd have with him and I suspect same could come out regarding Arsenal.

I doubt any of us actually know how serious or not we were with the Falcao deal. We do know that to make things happen with the Falcao deal we had to offload a striker and the Negrado deal started to hot up at the same time. We also know that Pellers wants/needs 4 strikers because he has said so. Now he has 3. We may buy in January, we may be pinning our hopes on a 17 y/o but we have taken justifiable satisfaction at how we plan our squad in terms of shape and balance so this deal does look at odds with that ethos. As for maximising transfer value with a last minute deal well that is poor planning given an earlier sale at a million or two less but securing adequate cover makes more sense from a footballing perspective. Leave the last minute crap to Daniel Levy.

I agree with Blue2112 that the Negrado deal went too far for it to be walked back and it made more sense for it to go through then kill it but it still leave Pellers short of his desired striker quota.

The point is that maybe there was never any intention of signing a replacement for Negredo. The Falcao deal just happened to be one which was doable and worthwhile in that instance.

Just because Pellegrini says "I want four strikers" doesn't mean he genuinely feels that way. Watch him say next week either "Silva and Yaya can both play there so I'm not worried" or "Kelechi is someone who wanted to give a chance to and we had no intention of signing another player". Either way, the timing of Negredo's sale is only problematic if you believe City were desperate for a replacement for him, which would seem odd when that replacement would more than likely not even be registered in the CL squad this season. As I say, the most likely scenario is that Falcao being available and Negredo wanting to leave at the same time was coincidental. City would've let Negredo go regardless if their valuation was met.

 

[BobKowalski]

The usual suspects who thinks he walks on water and never makes mistakes,of course he has and will,i believe this is one,time will tell,until then i don't need to be insulted by you

what's he done wrong? Taking all factors into consideration... *genuine question*

You beat me to it. Would love to know what these bad decisions are that our board have made since they were appointed. Genuinely as well because there seems to be an awful lot of people who seem to be wandering around with a sense that Soriano and our director of football are somehow chancers who don't know what they're doing. In fact I think i read that exact phrase used to describe them just this morning.

Anyway yes, Karen, would love to hear what these bad decisions are you think that the powers that be have made.

I thought we were doing precisely that. Questioning the timing of selling Negrado with no time to get adequate cover and whether potentially weakening our strike force will come back to bite us when it comes to prize giving day. Refer to OB1's post for a detailed summary.